So because I was trying not to stare, I didn’t see a damned thing when Priya stepped out of the shadows like an avenging angel and clubbed the big fool holding Merry over the head with something heavy enough that it didn’t make a hollow melon thump but more of a wet thud. I did see him go down, though — you don’t miss a noise like that — and I did see Priya straight-arm heave the heavy thing straight at Bill’s head.
It didn’t hit him, for a pity. He caught it — he’d turned because of the thud, too, I suppose. It was a cast-iron boot scraper — maybe she’d picked it up by the door? — and I have no idea how on earth a skinny thing like Priya managed to throw it hard enough that catching it knocked him two steps backward, though sadly not clean over.
Tomoatooah must of been biding his time, because he came up off the floor like he had springs for sinews, and I didn’t even see what he did to old Bill except when it was over he was standing over the body with Priya’s sledgehammer in his hands, the head dripping nasty. I must of lost track of Horaz, too — or maybe he skedaddled — because all of a sudden the only bad guys upright in the room were Scarlet and Bantle, and they was glancing one at the other like they didn’t understand how the odds had changed so quickly.
Then Tomoatooah and Merry and Priya was side by side, black haired and wild like furies. Tomoatooah had that sledge, and Merry had picked up that iron poker she’d been waving around earlier — and in her other hand she had Tomoatooah’s Colt.
Being a practical sort, she gave the fire iron to Priya and kept the shooter herself.
I managed to get my elbows under me as they came forward. Bantle checked the odds and ran like a bat out of Hell for the door into the dining room. Damn, I thought. It’s only one stick. He’ll be out of range.
“Get out,” I croaked.
I don’t know if they heard me. Because Merry aimed that Colt right at Scarlet’s midsection and she told him, “You take a step, I drill you.”
He stopped.“Drop the wrench.”
It thudded to the carpet. I hadn’t even seen he was still carrying it.
“Priya,” Merry said. “You get Karen.”
Priya was the obvious choice. Merry was still hunched over from that pounding, and Tomoatooah was listing a bit to one side. But I couldn’t let them slow down enough to bring me. Not with the match—
Tomoatooah gave Priya a little shove with the side of his hand when she hesitated, obviously torn between going to me and looking out for Standish or Bantle coming up behind them. He turned to watch the hall.
Well, Tomoatooah knew about the dynamite, and he sure had a damn sight more experience with nitroglycerine than I did. If he weren’t worried, I weren’t worried.
“Hurry,” he barked when Priya wavered another half second.
Okay, maybe I was a little worried after all.
But I’d delay her longer by putting up a fight than by helping. And honestly, I didn’t want to die by being blown to bits with Bantle’s infernal machine. So I did what I could, and she got me up, though I was the next thing to deadweight.
Reader, I fainted on the way out the door — Tomoatooah and Priya half-carrying and half-dragging me; Merry walking backward with that Colt level in her hand. I woke up three hundred feet down the street when the sky started raining glass behind us, as the Marshal reined Dusty in from a dead run just ahead.
Chapter Nineteen
I don’t remember much of meeting up with Effie or the Marshal or of the ride back to Merry’s place, except I did it on Dusty, with Marshal Reeves holding me into the saddle. I remember him asking about Bantle and about Scarlet. I’m not sure what he got told.
They got me up three flights of stairs, and Merry made a complicated knock to get us in. You’d think she’d have a key to her own door, but I heard the rattle of bolts and chains and then Aashini was peeking through the crack, frowning.
The door shut, there was more rattling, and then it was yanked wide open. We must of tumbled into the room like a shivaree, because she went jumping backward with a yelp, then scrambled up to slam the door after us. More rattling and bolts thrown, and the Marshal laying me very gently on a much-patched yellow couch. I heard cups clinking, and before I knew it I was holding a china cup with a mismatched saucer full of hot tea laced with sugar and rum. I didn’t know if rum was the best thing for electrocution, but it looked like Tomoatooah had one, too, and he was only slowed down in drinking it by the steam coming off.
Effie was clucking over my face with cool cloths, and Priya was holding on to my hand. And all I wanted to do was forget the last hour … but I didn’t think I could.
And I didn’t dare ask Effie how bad my face was. I could tell from the way it hurt that there was going to be a scar. Or a lot of little scars, round like the ones on Priya’s arms.
Well, I’d meant to get out of the seamstressing business sooner or later. I guess now was as good a time as any. And I kept telling myself that over and over, like it was going to make a dent in the hollow scared feeling inside me if I thought it often enough.
I wondered if I had enough money saved to get any kind of a start in gentling. If Priya still had my savings, I mean.
If she’d give it back to me.
Well, she was there now, and she was holding my hand. That was something promising. And we’d blown up Bantle’s infernal machine. And maybe the man who built it, too, if we got lucky.
There. That made a dent in the hollow scared. Or maybe Priya rubbing between my shoulder blades was what did it.
Oh Christ, it hurt so much to cough.
I was thinking about that in a kind of not-too-discontented haze when my nose started working again. I tried to jump up, and Priya and Effie pushed me back into the couch. I wasn’t in no shape to fight ’em.
“Oh Christ, Merry, your couch! I’m…” soaked in piss.
“It’s seen worse,” she answered, and brought me another cup of tea. Less rum in this one. I thought about Bantle’s concern for his fancy rug, and Merry — who didn’t have nothing — and how little she cared for what she did have when a friend was hurt.
Well, Bantle’s rug was blowed up now.
And then I realized that I’d thought of myself as Merry’s friend. Smiling made my cheek hurt like the skin was cracking leather.
Hell, maybe it was.
I realized I’d lost track of the men and lifted my head enough to see that the Marshal had gotten Tomoatooah into a battered armchair, his feet on an ottoman. He was fussing over the Indian and the girls was fussing over me. I started to spiral down that sucking hole of scared again, but Priya kissed my forehead and I remembered that my scars — whatever they turned out to be — weren’t nothing on hers. We’d be fine. If she was sticking with me we couldn’t not be fine.
I patted her hand and tried to sit up. When I did, Aashini was there. She didn’t talk much, but I was getting the idea that she didn’t miss much, neither. Because she had a pile of fabric in her hands, and when she shook it out I could see it was a man’s loose flannel trousers and a check shirt and a knit wool cardigan.
She set them on the table beside the sofa. A moment later, she came back with a basin of steaming water and a clean, soft cloth. “Clean up?” she asked.
My heart about stopped at the kindness.
Her English wasn’t as good as Priya’s, which was a little reassuring. Or maybe it would of been easier to deal with a whole family of creepy geniuses. It’s hard to tell which way that would go. And it wasn’t like Aashini ain’t just as smart as Priya in her own way, though I didn’t find that out for a few minutes. It’s just that Priya’s got that gift for languages.